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College basketball in final fan frenzy
By Carey Gillam
ATLANTA (Reuters) - Inside a downtown pub just off Peachtree Street, a group of middle-aged men clad head-to-toe in orange contort their bodies and chant a college fight song.
Outside, crowds swarm the sidewalks, cheering, chanting and boasting of triumph for their favorite teams.
This is the culmination of "March Madness," the annual phenomenon of Americans spending millions of dollars as they gather to watch top U.S. college basketball teams battle for the national championship.
The weeks-long event, starting with 64 teams, comes to a head with Monday evening's final game between the defending champion Florida Gators and the Ohio State Buckeyes.
Jon Floyd, a 48-year-old urologist from Oakland, California, said he made the trip to Atlanta to meet up with an old college friend, even though the team of their alma mater -- the North Carolina Tarheels -- failed to reach the semifinals.
The atmosphere of collegiate camaraderie is too much fun to miss, he said.
"It is kind of unparalleled in sports, the way it brings people together," said Floyd, sporting a powder-blue and white Tarheels polo shirt. "It has helped keep a friendship going for 30 years." Continued...
The spectacle of the amateur basketball games, which can turn grown men and women into giddy cheerleaders and prompt spending of $200 to $2,000 for tournament tickets, is one part social connection and one part youthful nostalgia, according to Rick Grieve, a professor at Western Kentucky University.
"There is a lot of benefit to being highly identified with a sports team. They get social support, a sense of well being and there is a reconnection with the youthful college years," said Grieve, who is studying fan behavior in a joint project with a team of sport psychologists.
"The body may have grown old but the spirit is still young."
Atlanta officials estimated fans would spend some $53 million in the city, inside and outside the stadium, on activities related to the so-called Final Four games.
"I don't go to church. I worship at the House of the Gators," said Diana Davis, 49, of Gainesville, Florida, wearing the team's shirt, hat, socks and bracelet.
She has been to all four tournaments since 1998 in which Florida reached the semifinals.
"I'm married to the Gators," Davis said
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